


Your misfortune and (none of my own)

by menthuthuyoupi



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menthuthuyoupi/pseuds/menthuthuyoupi
Summary: It’s on the whim of fate in another time, that Meruem survives.What would have been the grave and resting place of royalty in another existence becomes a place of rebirth and new horizon. And here, despite every possible outcome, the king and his entourage emerge victorious. For them, victory was not arising as the summit of all life on earth. Nor was it the absolute death of the invaders that stormed into the palace and their world.Victory on that night, for them, was but the chance to see the light of a new dawn once more.And in this future, the royal guards must plan for a new life; without their king.The royal guards lose a little, and lose a lot all in that order.They find God: Life is still hard.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

Neferpitou was dying.

Before now he had never known the failure of a hunt.

Pitou had never known difficulty either-- thought it would be easy in fact-- Thought of it easy to curl his needle thin claws around the dome of the enemy's head, digging in sharp, a brutish squeeze to break through to and find the underlying curve of bone and brain matter beneath. 

Instead of victory though, things had taken a turn for the worst.

From the moment things exploded into chaos it came to him as a lesson; some innate tangling of nerves in the sensation of knowledge, of this imminent outcome. 

It was instinct; raw, despairing, and very much animal.

Pitou was dying.

He knew it-- knew it very down to the crux of his nerves. Knew it with each skidding-quick beat of his clamouring sharp heart, velvet red, loud in his own ears, to the flutter of the thing living in his pulse. Each _thump-thumping_ disorderly beat that struck deep in the overarching note of his pulse as it proclaimed: _your time is up._

As some say, knowledge is a curse. 

And the knowledge of what was to become of him was like the glittering twist of a blade to the ladder of his ribcage.

Perhaps all it was, was a fitting end. His origins were brought about by violence; by the very blood-let for his queen, and it would ultimately be violence to bring about his untimely undoing.

He must’ve looked pitiful no doubt, he surmised, with no strength in his legs to carry him away. He sealed his fate by using them to leap at Gon.

And then this once-child repaid his decision of using them to leap by leaving them broken and limp with the crash of his fists.

And the boy… how he let his fists tell a story on its own.

How they shaped his body with the crack of knuckle against bone, loud and angry, each drive of fury and resentment and mourning poured into the indent of his skin and underneath it. That wasn't all, no. One of his eyes stopped seeing long ago, too-- could only stare blearily as some dark, massive shape shifted from amongst the trees. Couldn't even tell from which way death would come. 

From the second judgment had started he could only do so much as flail. That was all he'd been good for in the moment.

And now, not even that.

He noted, distantly, how his chitin was wet and shiny with his own blood.

Vaguely Pitou wondered who this hunter-child was before he came this thing, before his own actions birthed this hatred, before he gave up his body in the name of revenge. Before a cruel devil and sorrow amassed into an aching soul replaced his personhood, before he traded humanity for the chance to become a living weapon.

In any case, it wouldn't matter now. 

Flesh ravaged by brutal disparaging knuckles, each flick of his torn ear sent a cacophony of white hot pain slithering down his nerves.

The dull, pulsing throb was distracting at best and a beat that helped sever his thoughts from the wrecked half of his body.

He did it all for an infallible being who would soon hold the world under his grip in a single image of power.

Little ant was bleeding out. Bleeding out repentant resistance with cool, slippery blue to disturb the earth.

He could not even shrink, could not even cringe away from the blows. To cringe away from death was a funny thought; some crude, basal desire to live clung to that very notion. 

_'Funny thoughts, funny thoughts,'_ his mind helplessly parroted like mantra. Even if he wanted to, he could not laugh at that. 

With features too numb to be masterful, too numb even be caught into a twist of careful expression, it would hurt to laugh. It would hurt to even _croak_.

With his speech was ruptured pitifully, he doubted he could even so much manage a measure of some pathetic pained hiss, not even a guttural warble to be sent thundering past his lips.

It wouldn’t work. 

He tried to before.

So Pitou was dying, you see. Or was going to. Something like that.

Sooner or later. 

Everything was all a matter of time.

Another thing he knew: by the end of it all, he'd be lucky to be left even so much as a navy smear in the dirt.

There will be no afters. There would be no Pitou to stand tall and regal behind a King still learning to imbue his will upon a tireless society. There will never be time to grow. He thinks about how from here, in spite of it all, things still remain beautiful in its entirety; how he could see the sky break into twilight, stars crawling from their resting places.

Pitou will never learn to be good, or learn to wipe away tears of those he's wronged with a thumb and a graceful deference.

Maybe it was important to appreciate what he had left. What sights he would see.

The one thing he didn't stop to think of was the little mercies that might come.

Pitou was too weak to sense it all.

But he could still hear.

Through his heightened senses Pitou could hear nimble limbs flirting against foundation of earthen soil, rolling over the peak of a grassy knoll, flattening blades of wondrously frail grass snugly under its step.

It was a visitor of delicate muscles hidden behind flexible legs, all graceful force, wound together into a body that moved with worry trailing closely behind its very heels.

Petal pink ears perceived something like a brilliant storm.

There was a boy...

He was small. Fast. faster than Pitou had ever seen. Swift like the little glimmer of fish beneath water. Swifter, even. Lightning crackled in his wake. And his skin...

His skin reeked of thunder. 

In a world where Pitou was not a good creature, but he had all the potential to be, the world gave him the chance to be better.

It was a same world where the night was wild and merciful and that boy arrived much earlier than he should have.

He looked tiny next to the child-turned-man, a sharp-clawed cat next to a lumbering dog.

But his yell stopped the world. He yelled to stop Gon, to stop a blow that would have, for all intents and purposes, been fatal, and his yell split the crisp night air.

He yelled that single name wrought with meaning and intent.

The light faltered. Turned; the ensuing change in the crossroads of life.

And his covenant dropped.

Whether Gon wanted it to or not, his power went with him: kicking and screaming, exploding its stellar guts across the clearing.

Swallowed them all, it did. And the forest around it, too.

In the muted light of nowhere, he burns the remains of trees around him to silvery ash.

It's an almost beautiful sight. It's an awful one.

Pitou does not say that much about many things.

Pitou did not imagine he'd say that much about his death.

But he surveys, one eye attentive as smog billows forth, thick with flame that looked as if it were brewed in the heart of a star. Hooking into the thick of the air, it was the fire that would eat and never stay still.

Pitou grits his teeth, ivory glinting succinct against ivory in a fearsome flash of keratin and drawn incisors. Steels himself.

His time has come. That's alright, he thinks. He'll take this ending now.

**_**_ **

There has never been anything more beautiful.

If Pouf has ever sure of an absolute it is of this.

The king moves like the sky has called to him all along-- unbidden, like he has never been, was never born without wings-- moving like the sky's sole purpose is to serve as the medium that bears his weight aloft.

It is evident with how he soars, soft and silken like stems of jasmine. Pouf sinks into this motion as he follows his king, learning to mold into the sinuous movement as if he were made to glide through air on triumphant wings all along. Flying is no longer a stranger to him, all of it belayed by the ease of which his primaries break the currents, cutting the winds with a single downstroke. Not even a flutter heard to the clip of his wings, slow and sure through the practiced elegance of his very being. His tutor is something older than anything living on earth; the oldest part of his body. The thing that takes care of the drumming of blood that settles under his system of bones. 

Now, it takes care of the leathery snap of wings against the tender fabric of unerring sky imprinted all around them. Violet meets what keeps them alive and breathing through trembling, complex hearts and tender pink lungs. Wings kiss and from them engendering whirls of wind.

It's incredibly good. It's all _better_ than good. From here, he'll only keep improving. He'll only keep getting better.

It's what kings do. They're meant to keep challenging-- meant to keep throwing the world into disarray with their brilliance.

His mind briefly trails to that of Neferpitou's absence, but he allows himself to carefully stifle it, fully focused on thoughts of his king. 

And though it is all an excellent display of power and speed and glory, there is more that nags at Pouf's mind. A timid girl somewhere lain among dust, dirt, rubble and ruin. She, full of the power to change everything.

He'll take care of her soon enough. He just has to be quick about it.

For now, he simply relaxes and folds against the brawn of Meruem's tail. And why shouldn't he?

With a king this peerless, this infallible, there isn't a thing to worry about.

The guard's strength was all but a mirage, their full power a smidgen of everything Meruem possessed. Shaiapouf's was but a puff of it. Everyone else? Mere dust, embers.

And come what may...

Up here, the world is soundless.

**_**_ **

Pitou awoke.

Jolted from a slumber like death was more like it.

He awoke to a wasteland where everything smelt like heat. Awoke resting on a carpet of flint and sulfur.

Pitou observed everything with a roving eye, carmine flowering into a sleek iris blown with worry.

Fear tightened its grip on him. And it tightened its grip on him like this:

_The world is grey and your king is in peril._

_Your king is in peril because the tiger-boy is gone._

Fear sharpened Pitou's mind like this:

Despite all, despite his cracked bones, his fractured limbs, he lifted his head marginally from his bloody and matted chest.

Love tightened its grip on Pitou like this:

_'Where is he? Where has he went?'_

Gon had exploded so brightly that nothing was left. So bright that Pitou could not see the end to his impact, to his smothering violence.

Pitou could only hope tiger-boy did not go to the one place where all of his efforts would be rendered useless.

But hope would not be enough. What he needed now, in that tense moment where he was alive and afraid and still _alive--_ still still still! Despite everything, miraculously alive with a heart beating full of love-- He needed the strength to stand. To walk. To sprint. To run.

To leap. 

To crawl, if needed.

To his king's side. Just as he always had. 

Because he realized, more important than anything, he'd come back to Meruem. 

Where he once thought he was going to die, what he once imagined to be his last stand, he'd be able to return.

There will be an after.

And if he needed to, fight bloody and unrelenting, he'd do it all over again.

Nothing truly lasted forever. Pitou knows this like the metallic tang of his own blood on his tongue and a breath hanging heavy in the hollow of his throat.

So yes, everything had an end.

He thinks. Considers.

_'Everything... but Us.'_

Infantile triumph, lackadaisical, glides through the lining of veins. The success of his survival has him overjoyed.

It all started with a gaze far too filled with anything other than tenacity.

Pitou’s dimmed gaze wandered to, studying the tango of satiny indigo, the glittering lifeblood Gon made a mess of under the ebony calm of starlight.

An unwitting maw parts to take in the air, A pink tongue pattered wetly against the roof of his mouth as he set to work putting his power to use. His ache: an obstacle sure to make any task difficult.

He needed Doctor Blythe.

He tried to move-- to pant his exertion into the thick of his arm perhaps. Something inside him squelched with a sickening tumult before he could even shift his neck. His animal hindbrain screamed at him. _Baby steps, Pitou._

Yes, he _needed_ Blythe, he thought more fiercely. He needed his doctor. He needed nen.

He couldn't move. But he still had his mind and his hatsu. He could still formulate a plan.

Summoning his doctor before had never come close to a challenge. But here he was weak-- on the verge of death. Geared himself toward feeling the flow of his body; how he'd take that flow and guide strand by strand of it outside his body with no bridge to block its path.

Now Pitou could feel it-- his senses, his body, his mind-- the things that made him who he was. Steadily pushing them outward, careful not to lose himself.

It felt like the future coming back to him. He was going to live. He wasn't going to die utterly defeated and alone.

It was like the sweet taste of victory on his tongue, sharp and sweet yet like honey.

He'd lost, yes, but he won as well, all at once. Battered and bruised if not, worse for the wear, but still filled with capability.

Because this wasn't the end. There was still a chance for more. For greater.

This made things easier now. And if he did wish for one outcome, hollow as it was, that the blast was what destroyed the child soldier, Gon imploding on hisself, a tsunami of misfortune and chance cut short.

He couldn't move an inch, yes, but he tried to focus on everything. Everything at once. Everything starting from the oxygen in his breath to the calcium in his bones and the iron in his blood to the buildup of silicon 'neath the leafblade thin universe of his skin.

And like he pictures the faces of his brethren in the recess of his thought, He pictured Doctor Blythe, clear in his mind like a beacon.

His lungs lifted. He reached for the energy inside him, prayed for the clear hour he'd be able to see his king again. 

And began to work.


	2. Chapter 2

Healing was a process. Always had been. It was a process even now as he put his doctor to work, feeling the flow of his output, a broad stroke, a delicate art like a paint's brush, sewing back cartilage and joint and pushing away shiny pools of slick blood pooling over his legs.

There was so much of it he was sure by now he had memorized the exact grungy shade of it. The exact dinginess of royal blue against his own carapace. And it was warm, so warm that even sordid, it was still a comfort to the cool and unsettling breeze of the forest.

The feline chimera took in whatever few shallow breaths his body could grant him. His stomach was wrecked-- but not beyond repair. That was Blythe's job. Blythe could fix anything. Within time. Time he still hope he'd have to return to the others.

It takes an hour. It takes an hour to stop the internal bleeding. It takes hours more of him nursing his arm and his legs and Doctor Blythe resetting the fold of his ear from where it was hanging by a thread, so ready to fall off, to fixing the once-pretty alabaster of his chipped teeth and tending his eyes as he sat in the suffocating dark half blind, unable to see, and so very very alone.

But the temporary loss of what little sight he had left grounded him, able to focus. Pitou was alone with his thoughts and he was safe, however little, in the knowledge that the one who called himself Gon, had traded in everything for power wasted, and no longer was there anything to pose a threat to the ant King. He didn't take joy in that little hunter's seeming unmaking. He could have rejoiced. All Pitou saw was as it were- a necessity.

Everything hurt so much that time slowed to a crawl.

It was painstaking moments before he was able to stand again. Moments before the feeling returned to his nerves and he could twitch the ends of his claw-tipped fingers and curl his tail with the astuteness he had known from birth. Doctor Blythe helped, dragging Pitou into a shaky stretch underneath the thin canopy of burnt, tangled branches and the ghost of dead leaves from the bones of fallen trees that rested in silence.

He was stronger now than ever before. And better.

Like a hero, he is born again. Pitou revels, knowing whatever gore he has shed is a secret between him and the ground and the trees. He leaves a shape behind, just barely-there impressions in the grass of his weight and the jolly splatter of blue, a scene which spoke of Gon's near-success.

When the ant knows he is ready he gathers all the energy in his calves, his thighs and his legs and sprints. Sprints far enough that he leaves the dilapidated area of the forest behind in seconds, and breaches territory where there is leaf and underbrush, and cricket and owl and song, untouched by the harsh of Gon's explosion. He bolts under the overhang of trees, rejuvenated, and knows he is swifter than sound. As swift as he was the moment after he'd been knocked from the sky by the intruders.

His senses funnel forward and expand to their limit. His king is his refuge and he knows wherever he'll be, he is going. He'll come home.

******

Meruem is baring his soul a little more each minute, and there's not much more of anything neither Pouf nor Youpi can do about it.

Not much energy to spare for anything even if he wanted to.

The youngest royal guard is tired in a way he's never been in his little life-- drag-out exhausted, his reserves of energy like something drowned in quicksand. He is but a fraction of what he was, in the most literal sense, and learning to adjust to a world now far too big for him. That is okay because the king ( he's Meruem now, isn't he? ) has been brought from the brink of death and Pouf's a mess, they are both a mess right now. He missed his Light and his security and his purpose, but Youpi has them back now.

Menthuthuyoupi is tired, but he's far from alone. That's what makes all the difference.

They sat in the frigid, biting cold of Gorteau. They moved far from the palace and now Pouf is nearby. Youpi can sense him from here, in equal parts _raging_ . He tried to bar it from Meruem though. Would pick at the sharpness of his nails or gasp quietly when he felt anything might bubble over. Even the slightest hint and Meruem would _feel_ for it like a hunting hound or a shark for blood in salmon-shade waters. Both of them knew well- it had happened before, and it was a frightening thought to imagine it could happen again.

And Youpi knew why he was fuming. Because of the reserved woman who laid tranquil beside the King's form, back turned to them, leaning into one another, almost as if he were cradling her.

Youpi knew the thought would drive Pouf into a rage of no ends.

All made worse by the fact Meruem hadn't returned the same.

"I'll retrieve Komugi myself," The king had been firm as he said it the moment he approached the warehouse, and Youpi watched him come back with her cupped carefully in the wide crook of his arms, Pouf straining all the while to hide his indignance.

It had been half an hour since.Youpi still remembered the exact way it all went down.

The youngest shot Pouf a quick look.

It is disconcerting for Pitou to be absent but for now, he sticks close to Pouf-- there's something about the older's shadow that he trusts. And it's something from in his egg-dreams, from the moments before he hatched-- the things he knew but had never been taught, that it was better not to be alone. There was always meant to be more than one guard. They worked as a unit, and theirs, without the presence of Neferpitou was disjointed, like a puzzle out of place, cutting his already short world so tiny. Now he knew what it felt like to be so suddenly off kilter, like something wheeling away helplessly from its anchor. He wondered if the elder would ever return-- Shaiapouf and his king were the only things he could cling to desperately now harder than ever before.

What they were waiting for, he wasn't quite too sure, but Meruem and Komugi conversed low among the still air, and both ants patiently awaited orders, not so much as daring to wander into their space. In that moment Youpi knew exactly how Pouf felt the past few weeks-- much like that of a stranger, on the outside looking in.

However disconcerting the situation, It was almost a peaceful scene. Youpi, on the other hand, felt clumsy-- barbaric in the stillness of it all, as if he were intruding upon some deferential gesture.

It's a moment golden and honeyed. Not for him.

Despite it, Youpi is grateful; grateful for the little things, because the moment is merciful and allows him to do what he rarely ever does. To think. To breathe. To deal with a feeling he can’t put a name or a word to, hoping to drown a restlessness that gnaws his bones and makes them _ache_ . Youpi thinks, but he does not ever reflect. He simply allows himself to sit, to _be_ and endure. It is a routine he knows how to do all too well. He'd be content to be lost to himself too, just a mindless little guard, but beyond their little atmosphere there’s more, and he has to be alert, ever vigilant now that the eldest is missing. He may not be as sharp as Pitou, but something prompts him to turn- someone's approaching the summit at breakneck speed. 

Snaring his attention the beast guard anticipates it, a presence verging faster on the hill than one should be able to intake a single breath of hair. It eats up the distance and it would be overwhelming for anyone else but Youpi. Even in his weakened and feeble form he keeps up. If he weren't so panicked he'd find it remarkable. He'd only ever witnessed this speed in one other ant, and to think there's someone left out there that could hold a candle to that is-

Well. It's beyond alarming.

It’d be times such as this that Pitou’s en would be useful. Pitou always knew. He'd know what was coming miles before they even had to see it.

Pouf is doing what Neferpitou isn't present for right now this moment; dozens of him scattered in dozens of places, making up for the flaws in the own briefness of his en's range. Meruem wasn't even a question now. Komugi was a nen user-- since however long, Youpi didn't know. Never paid attention to all the little things about this human that had captured the king's attention. But what he knew from firsthand experience was the first touch of Meruem's en would overpower and overwhelm her extra senses. Now was a moment for reconciliation and rest, not a moment to awaken further jittery feelings as he attempted to comfort her.

So now there was all of Pouf ( it's a strange thought ) watching, scouting for anyone or any _thing_ that could still be searching for them.

A certain someone that despite all, has slipped past his awareness.

His tongue did scrape against his teeth, a silent drag against dull white. To speak, to say something.

He never really gets that far because it's much like they say. 

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Youpi is bewildered into silence as the too familiar figure pulls against the summit of the hill. It's no enemy, no hunter, no rogue ant. It's none other than a scraggly Neferpitou, as loyal as the rest of them, strangely disheveled who gathers before them and in a sloppy gesture, drops to a shaky, scuffed knee.

An eternity of waiting in the cold, waiting for the missing royal guard and he's here. Here all the same, and kneeling in the only way he knows how.

There's a few long moments of nothing. Youpi can feel Pouf's confusion from here, too, palpable and thick.

Meruem turns to address his guard, leaving Komugi by the smooth, flat cluster of rocks they made their seats, and Youpi is still staring.

"No need for that. Please, stand." 

The starting and stopping buzz of that _'please'_ when Meruem speaks lashes through Pouf and he snaps his head away like he's been slapped. Youpi spots it instantly.

Pitou rises and Meruem eyes his rumpled coat and the last remains of blood, smudged, faded and dirty. So blue it blended right in with everything else. 

"Where have you been?"

"There was a human who separated me from the battle entirely. The situation was taken care of."

Meruem doesn't inquire anything else. It seems there's more pressing things on his mind at the moment. "Thank you for taking care of Komugi."

Pitou blinks owlish at first, almost as if unsure of what to do now that his king has _thanked_ him for anything for the first time in his life. _But_ , Youpi thinks to himself, shuddering his wings and content to spectate an interaction he is not a part of for once, _tonight has been a night of firsts_. Fighting for the first time had been exhilarating. He has seen sides to Pouf he never thought possible- the king as well- but now… Now he is drained. Conversation is a type of thing that makes him slack jawed and his tongue sluggish. He is just content to be silent and watch.

"Of course, your majesty," Now it is Youpi who has to witness Pitou next, come to terms with this strange new world and their strange new King. The other guard tests his response, cautiously replacing it with the base, simple desire of serving the king as he was assigned to. Yet, in all of the three of them, it is he who takes it easier than anyone else, daring to face his charge with a grateful quirk on his lip, barely-there. "I am honored, it was simply my duty."

There's something at Meruem's face that twitches at this, barely controlled.

"There's no need for titles, Pitou. I've found my name. You may address me as Meruem now."

There's no fanfare when it's announced, no urgency. Meruem presents his name easily and unceremoniously yet so quickly is Pitou _pleased_ , he thinks. Youpi thought it wasn't possible for Pitou's eyes to light up further in the dim. He doesn't miss the way his ears twitch to attention or his tail twists itself with barely concealed mirth to join the rush of endorphin that must be surely flooding in his veins. His king's will is his own, and if the name he has searched for so long has been granted to him, it is nothing short a miracle.

"It fits you well."

As sudden as he says it, there's sniffling from beyond the circle as Komugi scopes in on the voice in conversation. "Sir Pitou? S'that you?"

Pitou seems alarmed to be singled out. A bright gaze is tossed towards Meruem. After a moment undetected, Meruem bobs his head indiscernably. As if confirming something.

"It's me," He calls back reassuringly.

"Thank you," There's a moment where she struggles to clear her nose, suck back the mucus, to inhale, a little breathy wheeze in her throat. "Thank you for taking care of me today," She hastily corrects. "So much had happened- I wasn't sure… I was very worried you left, but oh, I'm so relieved to know you're okay now."

"I'm flattered by your concern," There is a full on genuine smile threatening to tug at Pitou's lips. "Likewise, it is good to see you safe."

Youpi's mind drifts and it's nowhere near the conversation taking hold.

Pitou is odd. Pitou is very, very odd now. He's a tower of flesh and bone and just as easy he could wrap his razor-tipped finger around the young guard or rustle Youpi's primaries aside with a single stroke from the pad of his thumb. Once so short to the youngest, now tall. In any case, it's something to ponder over, with Youpi being so… small as he is now. It's uncanny.

Correct that to Very and Too small. Now he could sidle up to Pitou and plop himself into his hand much like.. Much like the insect he is.

Or like a child.

A very vulnerable child. Like someone to be looked after and cared for.

He thinks he liked it better when he was the tallest thing around, and others had to crane their neck to talk up to him rather than glancing down.

Giants truly are built on perspective.

Pitou speaks level, never once directing his attention away from Meruem, yet Youpi knows in the moments the king turned to address his oldest guard he'd been carefully ogling, from the corner of round amber eyes, Youpi with something infinitely quizzical. He has always been the curious one, but to think Youpi is a subject of interest for the other guard now in this form--

It's odd imagining Pitou is fully capable of reaching out and hold him in the palm of his hand like something to protect. 

But ants-- and certainly not the royal guard-- don't do that. It's not nature. They never needed the protecting. They don't poke and prod and _touch_ with tender comfort ( much, worryingly like he's seen Komugi and his king do a whole lot of lately ). They don't brush shoulders or invade each other's space.

Except for Pouf. Except for Pouf on a bad day-- on a very bad day when the idea of Komugi has gotten him in a rut and the only thing that can soothe him better than the neck of his violin in his palm and the base of it against is chin is to find someone to talk _at_ rather than to.

And that _someone_ is more often than not, the unassuming and unflattering Youpi, who doesn't say anything, but has learned to grunt and nod in agreement and repress his tongue curling yawns. Has mastered the art of feigning rapt attention, when he's in truth wondering just how to remove himself from the conversation quickly as possible. He imagines his life has been a lot like Pouf's ramblings. He doesn't understand the root of the situation or what masks it. He doesn't have the mind for that. He does what he does best. He reacts.

But this idea of potentially being seen as small and something to maybe even protect offsets Youpi, though he doesn't quite feel that's just it. There's a lot of _unspoken_ , and _underlined_ in that look. It wasn't relieving to be vulnerable. It wasn't relieving to be like this. It's unsettling to think something could happen to him- _could_ have happened to him in a body like this on the battlefield. He couldn't help but keep his guard up, but even still, he was not so unfamiliar with the other guard to even think of recoiling, even if, in a split second, if he wanted to- Pitou could scruff him between his forefinger and thumb with a single pinch.

Pitou's mouth parts lightly, a show of pink among the near-complete darkness, as if he wants to ask how this happened, before Meruem's voice robs him of whatever thought he might have ushered.

"I imagine you must be wondering where we go from here. On that, I must speak with you. Youpi, Pouf--" Youpi perks up. "--You too. Before the night is dead there is something much needed for us to discuss."


	3. Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I will no longer be uploading to ao3. You can find the updates for the new chapter on a sideblog for tumblr that I've created specifically for the fic.
> 
> The link to the new chapter is below this author's note.

Read the entirety of [chapter 3](https://racingly.tumblr.com/post/637511797914664960/read-chapter-3-here) here.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it's been a year since I started writing for this series, and now I'm delving into a story I can get pumped over. I'm so excited for this. 
> 
> I've been planning this fic for a while now and I'm so happy that I'll finally be able to put this concept into motion! I hope I can carry through with it and make it every bit as amazing and fulfilling as I imagined in my head.


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